Enron Corporation: America's Most Innovative Company

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Recommended: What do ethics mean to me

Moral awareness “occurs when an authority recognizes that a moral issue exists,” (Creasy PowerPoint, pg. 3). It can also be described as when someone acknowledges that an ethical code or principle is broken and is relevant to the circumstance. Having moral awareness correlates with the fact that you need to have a certain amount of ethics and values in order to run a company the right way. Enron Corporation did not show a good display of moral awareness. Enron Corp. is a company that reached dramatic heights, only to face a dizzying collapse,” (Investopedia). The company was founded after a “merger of two companies” by Kenneth Lay and executively run by Jeffery Skilling, (Investopedia). Enron was named “America’s Most Innovative Company for “six consecutive years …show more content…

Enron was able to employ over 20,000 employees across the globe. The recession of 2000 had Enron investors on the short end of the stick. The CEO, Jeff Skilling, had a clever and manipulative way of “hiding the financial losses of the trading business and other operations of the company,” (Investopedia). Skilling used a technique called mark to marketing accounting. The mark to market innovation “led to schemes that were designed to hide the losses and make the company appear to be more profitable than it really was,” (Investopedia). Andrew Fastow was a popular and growing businessman who was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in 1998. Fastow invested in his own companies using Enron as the main investor so he was always able to make a profit. Fastow knew that subsidiaries were losing money, however, he made the company seem as it was in great shape. Fastow and other high officials would hide tremendous amounts of debt from big investors and creditors using “special purpose vehicles,” (Investopedia). “The company, it was revealed, had made about a dozen "partnerships" with companies it had created, and it used those partnerships to hide huge debts and heavy losses on its trading

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